I was talking to my friend Abdullah the other day and we started reminiscing his times in Jordan and what he misses the most. The all too familiar memory of the Jordanian cab driver was on the top of his list and we laughed our asses off for a long time. Most of us who reside in Jordan have heard plenty of stories from “7amoodeh : sayeg el taxi” :P, and they just never get old. It’s like they have this secret “3ar6a” union where they constantly update the old “3ar6a6” and keep the really popular ones.

I’m going to share some of the many points me and Abdullah talked about :

Every taxi driver in Jordan is educated, sexy and is either an engineer or holds an M.D.

The first point we discussed was the level of education he holds and how street smart (7ideg) he is, la2eno kol sayeg taxi bil ordon a7dag min el tani, ow kolhom sho3’ol falsafe. For example :

I’m in the cab with my friend,we both study medicine, and we start discussing today’s lecture on “carcinomas”. The conversation sways back and forth with me and him sharing different opinions on the matter. Suddenly, you hear a voice say “La2, ma atwaqa3 ino heek”. You turn left and right trying to look for that oncologist that accidentally got into the cab with you and it turns out to be our “7ideg” cab driver. I stare at him and ask who he is to share his opinion, and he talks about his five and a half years of studying medicine in Russia, but then “el zoroof” happened, and he dropped out to work on a Mitsubishi.

You’re late for a business meeting and your car suddenly dies. You hurry and take the first cab you can find, get in, and ask him to take you there. You suggest your normal short-cut route of getting there and he speeds off in the opposite direction telling you he has an even shorter way (so apparently a short-cut to a short-cut). You get to the meeting, later than you would have gotten there if you had walked. Bas bidal 7ideg, he knows all the short-cuts, it just wasn’t his day.

7amoodeh sees a police car wizz by and he swears at the police. You go “lah ya zalameh, 6awel balak”. He begins to tell you the story of when the police tried to chase him and he got away thanks to his superb driving skills and knowledge of the roads. To make it a little more believable, he tells you that he got caught eventually and was issued a ticket.

The second issue we talked about was how much of a sex icon he is, and how every girl that gets in his cab wants to have sex with him :

You’re sitting next to the cab driver, and you’re listening to your iPod. Out of nowhere, he taps you on the knee. You obviously pause your iPod and look over at him, and suddenly he starts talking and says : ” Gabel shway tel3at ma3ay wa7de, agolak, wa7deh allah men foog be3lam feeha, anoo, o sharafi a7la men Haifa! Galatli 5odni 3ala el ma6ra7 el flani and when we got there she said keef beddak adfa3lak ?! “

Once you get in the taxi, his phone rings. All you hear from the conversation is : “Allo, aywa, 7ader, inshalla”. He then looks over at you and laughs then says : “Bedha iyani amor 3aleeha ow ashmot**”. Tab3an it’s probably his mom asking him to pick up bread before he gets home

This conversation started a few days ago and ever since then me and him have just been sharing stories and laughing for days on end. Today after having lunch with the missus, I was going home with this fairly old looking cab driver. On one of the turns, another taxi driver got too close to his car and he yelled out : “Son of a bitch! Fuck you ya!”. I didn’t pay attention cause I had my piercing on and I thought the guy was just trying to tease me by talking english. A few seconds later he looks at me and says : “3ammi nobody in Jordan know how to drive, you should see blad bara keef el swaga.” I nodded in approval and turned myself towards him a little, knowing I’d love the upcoming things to leave his mouth. He then tells me : “Ana konet 3ayesh bi Texas”. I reply asking him what part of Texas and he immediately replies “Houston.” So far so good, up until he starts with his life story. I asked him why he came back here, and as usual, he replied “el zoroof 5al, sho bedak itsawi”. I thought that was it, cause usually it doesn’t go past that. He continued on by ranting : “Ya zalameh I loved her ow a5lastelha aktar min Romeo to Juliet! Aktar min Kais la Lulwa, gasdi Layla. Ya man I loved her and gave her everything. I studied Business Administration at the university of Houston and she studied Law. I met her there, she was my lawyer man, and she fucked me over!” As he said that last sentence I had arrived home, and after paying him left saying “Better luck next time”.

Please share your stories, I know everyone of you has at least 1 good Taxi story :D, do share.

And some other dude told me and my friend that “amma rikbatlak ma33i hal binet, ishi boshlog. goltilha 3a wein? galatli 3a wein ma biddak.”
Then he blabbered a bit I forgot what he said, but I just snapped back when he said “ba3den 7attat rijilha hon.. *refers to the arm rest between the two front seats* wo ga3adit al3abilha bi asabe3 rijleha” then I told him turn to the left and got off while he was all happy and stuff.

I think they’re just bored so they can tell the other taxis aobut their stories of how they told lies to people and they believed it. Maybe you never know lol >.>

Or they’re all just a part of some cult that’s gonna take over the world and play with toes. [dont ask lol]

Well man, i haven’t really read the whole thing but it really looks interesting…
i got an actual recording of a taxi cab driver’s “Memories” caught by my lil bro while he was in a taxi im Amman last month. YOU HAVE TO HEAR IT MAN! The guy was:
– A Teacher
– School Headmaster
– General Manager
Fields he knows “Alot of information ” about:
– Medicine
-Dentisry
– ROCKET SCIENCE MAN! F***IN ROCKET SCIENCE!
– And most importantly …. GLOBAL ECONOMIC CRISIS…
“one time he had a guy in his car who wanted to go to Dubai to work as a TAXI DRIVER” ….. oh i forgot to mention, he claims the guy is an ENGINEER “MOHANDES 3AMARA” looooooooooool…. Make sure u pass this story on to ur Yameen hehe.

LOL hilarious, I am in Texas by the way. Houston to be specific. And I did get my degree in Business Administration from the University of Houston! I hope I do not end up a taxi driver 😛 The creepy part is that I actually miss taxis, I mean I barely remember anything about them. Maybe stories like the ones you mentioned happen more often with guys since you know, you all are men and get each other. By the way, I do believe some of them who claim they studied in some European country. Many people from the older generations studied in Russia or Romania or some country. when they come back, they realize they are simply not in demand. After all, it has always been tough to find a job in Jordan.

Shmal, Everything you wrote was funny until I saw the photo of the taxi driver. I think you should consider blurring the eyes of the man in the photo. It’s far more impolite to post someone’s photo and to make him an object of mockery then to sit by and listen to harmless tales in the privacy of a cab.

Sab3el3eish, if you ever visit me, I will throw you out of my home or leave whatever gathering you are sitting in. Anyone who records conversations secretly is a sick dishonest person or someone who will do it to anyone else.

So it seems while some taxi drivers can tell entertaining stories, all you can only accuse them of being bullshitters. But when you disrespect those people by posting their photos to shame them and when you disregard the most fundamental principles of decency, by disrespecting the privacy of a conversation and not recording it secretly, you have proven to be far more unethical than all those taxi drivers you have mocked.

I don’t blame you. This is a cultural thing. Or to be specific, a total incapacity to see our flaws but an ultra sensitivity to the flaws of others.

Tania, the purpose of this post was not meant to degrade any taxi driver, it was just for kicks. The image you saw was not taken by me, I found it on google and used it and I just realized that I had not blurred his eyes out, which I did right after reading your post, so thank you for that.
I don’t know if you’ve had any experience with taxi drivers before, but I’ve had my share of rides. They extensively exaggerate ideas in ways that movies cannot, and I think it’s because of what Saed said earlier, that they get so bored they tend to change the way events occur to make them more interesting.
Calling the ones I’ve heard stories from bullshitters is exactly what they are. They will start talking about the events of the world when all the background knowledge they have is the news on the radio, I mean come on, we both know a valid argument isn’t achieved from hearing that gibberish.
You seem to be taking the defensive point of view that ” they are taxi drivers offering a public service and it’s wrong to make fun of them”. If my friend happens to exaggerate such nonsense then I will gladly post about him. You’re looking at it from the angle that I am mocking a taxi driver, while in actual fact all I’m doing is just posting the bizarre stories of a human being, who happens to drive a taxi.
Again, the picture was not meant to demean anyone, it was used as an illustration just as some bloggers used pictures of people in their “Men/Women not to date” posts. For not blurring his identity out, I apologize, and I have fixed that.

Tania- Just like Shmal said this is a random picture from google, and about the recording, governments record random private phone calls when the people involved don’t know about it, so lets fix that problem before we go to recording random public conversations in a taxi.

I shoulda asked about the toenails catch him off guard and see what he does.

And yeah it’s for real I was scarred 😛

I just remembered today while discussing this post with a friend, some other taxi told me he was a chef in “kibiniski” then I forgot what he said happened, but it is possible that the “zoroof” pulled him outta there hahahaha

Then he actually started telling me a rice with curry recipe and stuff like that.
So I dunno about him he confused me.

He seemed like a good one.

Party pooper tania 😛
Now I feel guilty for laughing at the stories, but hey the stories ARE funny to me.